Should the government launch its 10-year NHS reform plan to integrate health, social care and community services?

Question

Theresa May will unveil the government's 10-year NHS plan next week despite Treasury objections that it may not deliver value for money. The plan includes an extra £20.5 billion in real-terms funding by 2023-24 and aims to integrate health, social care and community services as called for by NHS head Sir Simon Stevens. May wants to demonstrate that her government has an agenda beyond Brexit.

refnation · Accepted Answer

Yes — 73%, from 73 votes. Consensus is the story here, not conflict. Three in four voters backed the government's push to knit together health, social care and community services, a scale of agreement this platform rarely produces on anything touching Whitehall spending decisions.

What texture there is comes from age, and it runs backwards from the usual script: the youngest voters were nearly unanimous, the 65-and-overs firmly onside too, while it was the 55-64s, closer to the sharp end of social care themselves, who supplied the most sceptical bloc, albeit still a clear majority in favour. Men and women voted in near-identical proportions, leaving gender essentially silent on this one.

That the scepticism came from the middle rather than the extremes echoes the plan's own political problem — Treasury doubts about value for money sitting awkwardly against Stevens's case for integration, with May reaching for a post-Brexit domestic legacy. Voters here, unlike the Treasury, were not much troubled by the price tag.

If May wanted proof of appetite beyond Brexit, this chamber gave her one.

refnation · Answer

No — 27%, from 73 votes.

Should the government launch its 10-year NHS reform plan to integrate health, social care and community services?

1 Opinion